Moving Up

Imir Leveque was promoted to group director at The Media Kitchen, a media strategy, planning, buying and management company. He will oversee major brand planning and new business and work with already established clients, including Pana-sonic Corp. of North America, UNICEF and Mohegan Sun Hotel Casino & Enter-tainment. Leveque joined The Media Kitchen in 2004 and has worked on such accounts as VH-1, Sci-Fi Channel, The Lance Armstrong Foundation, UNICEF and BMW Motorcycles. He previously worked at Young & Rubicam Inc., UniWorld Group Inc. and Grey Worldwide New York.

Rachel V. Simmonds-Watson

Rachel V. Simmonds-Watson joined the international law firm of Chad-bourne & Parke L.L.P. as the firm’s first manager of diversity initiatives. She previously worked at New York University’s School of Law as assistant director for Recruiting and Marketing in the Office of Career Services; legal recruitment coordinator at Ropes & Gray L.L.P. in Boston; and recruitment assistant at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson L.L.P. in New York. Simmons-Watson obtained a bachelor’s degree in international studies at New York University’s School of Continuing and Profess-ional Studies, where she was a Founder’s Day Scholar.

Claudius O. Sokenu

Claudius O. Sokenu was named a partner at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw L.L.P., one of the nation’s largest litigation firms. He joined the firm in 2001. He previously served as a senior counsel in the Washington, D.C., office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he specialized in securities litigation, white-collar criminal defense and corporate internal investigations. He represented the SEC in the prosecution of KPMG L.L.P. and Baker Hughes Inc. for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. At Mayer Brown, he litigated in SEC v. TV Azteca S.A. de C.V, the first reporting case under Section 307 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Sokenu read law at the South Bank University, London, and obtained a master of laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

Drew Hawkins

Drew Hawkins was named managing director and associate division director, Northeast Division, for Morgan Stanley’s Global Wealth Management Group. He also will serve on the Global Wealth Management Group’s Operating Comm-ittee. Hawkins obtained a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Delaware. He initially worked with Dean Witter & Co., where he developed a successful practice that focused on churches and minority-owned corporations. He became executive director and regional sales and marketing director for the Northeast Region in 2002 and in 2005 was named director of National Recruit-ing, with responsibility for overseeing and revitalizing recruiting activities to improve the quality and quantity of financial advisors.

Jo Ann C. Jenkins

Jo Ann C. Jenkins assumed the title of chief operating officer of the Library of Congress. She was appointed by Librarian of Congress James H. Billing-ton to succeed Deputy Librarian Gen-eral Donald L. Scott. Her responsibilities include the day-to-day operations of the Library and planning, reviewing, monitoring and directing overall programmatic and infrastructural suport. She will collaborate with the librarian, the associate librarian for library services, director of the Congress-ional Research Service, registrar of copyrights and the inspector general. Jenkins is a founding member of the U.S.–Japan Young Leaders Program. She also is active in several organizations, including The Links Inc. and Jack & Jill of America Inc., and is a member of the board of directors of the AARP.

Nicole Johnson-Reece

Nicole Johnson-Reece was appointed vice president of diversity at Aramark Corp. She comes to Aramark from Cendant Corp., where she led the diversity and inclusion strategy for the company’s hospitality business units. Johnson-Reece designed and launched Cendant’s first Women’s Leadership Initiative, worked to fully integrate diversity and inclusion into all associate and franchisee training programs and established relationships with key minority and community organizations. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Rutgers University and was named one of the “Top Blacks in the Lodging Industry” by Black Meetings and Tourism magazine in 2005 and 2006 and one of the “Top 100 Blacks in Corp-orate America” by Black Professionals magazine in 2005.

Nichol Whitman

Nichol Whitman was appointed director for strategic partnerships and marketing at The Jackie Robinson Foundation. A former JRF scholarship recipient, Whitman graduated from Spelman College with a bachelor’s in economics. In her new position, she will be re-sponsible for developing marketing alliances to in-crease the Foundation’s brand awareness and ancillary revenue streams. Whit-man previously was Group Circulation sales director at Black Enterprise magazine; manager of sales and promotions at Essence magazine; and a marketing analyst at J. P. Morgan & Co. Whitman received the Spelman Class of 1998 Businesswoman of the Year Award and the LEAD Program in Business’ 2005 Leaders of Tomorrow Award.